So Gonna Barf

My cube-neighbor is telling a story in gross detail about pulling a tick out of her pet’s paw.  Barf faint gross.

Here's to you, Mr. Burn (And to Burn's Momma)

A day late, but alas: taken from The Writer’s Almanac for August 26, 2007:

“It was on this day in 1920 that the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing American women the right to vote, was declared in effect. After the Congress passed the amendment, it had to be ratified by a majority of state legislatures. The state that tipped the balance was Tennessee, and the man who cast the deciding vote was the 24-year-old representative Harry Burn, the youngest man in the state legislature that year. Before the vote, he happened to read his mail, and one of the letters he received was from his mother. It said, "I have been watching to see how you stood but have noticed nothing yet. ... Don't forget to be a good boy and ... vote for suffrage."

At the house, supporters of suffrage sat in the balcony, wearing yellow roses. On the house floor, those who opposed suffrage wore red roses. When Burn entered the room, he wore a red rose and the anti-suffrage camp thought they had his vote. But when he was called on to say aye or nay for the ratification of the 19th Amendment, he said, "Aye," and the amendment was ratified by a vote of 49 to 47. A witness there that day said, "The women took off their yellow roses and flung them over the balcony, and yellow roses just rained down."”

 

Much Like Accidentally Reading a Movie or Book Spoiler

You know that awful feeling of regret mixed with that pit-in-your-stomach mixed with “Whyyyyyy did I doooo that?!” when your eyes move against your brain’s will and read down at the end of a website containing spoilers you weren’t going to read, you swear, you would NOT read how the end of the movie ends…

 

I’m sure many people fell prey to this phenomenon during Harry Potter frenzy, etc. but for me?  I got that feeling when I was put on hold with a supplier this afternoon while at work.

 

Knowing from past experiences that this company has HORRID hold-music, I was prepared to start humming to myself in my cubicle, or start reciting what I could remember from “The Raven” which my 8^th grade English teacher made us memorize, or even start talking to myself rhetorically like my coworkers do. 

 

But with that same power that forces you to scan your eyes down even though you see the **~*ALERT SPOILERS~!!11!!!** warning, I didn’t plug my ears, put the phone down, or answer “no” when asked “will you hold?”

 

Instead, I braced myself against the chair, lied to myself by theorizing “maybe it’ll be GOOD pop music… some JT or Fergie” and listened:

 

The Bodyguard, by her HIGHness, Whitney Houston.

 

Obviously, I have some bad karma residing somewhere on my karma slate.  After those painful two minutes, that slate damn well better be scrub clean, clean like the top of the Empire State Building…

 

I’m still shuddering.

 

OMG FAXES

STILL FAXES NOOOOO

 

Case Cracked?

For over 2 years now, I’ve periodically received phone calls from someone trying to fax. It happens every few months, and I’ll get 10 calls in a row from an Unknown Caller and all I hear is the fax shriek and I grumble to turn my phone to silent because I know there will be 9 more calls to follow. Since I never get a phone number I can’t block the call and sometimes Unknown Callers turn out to be actual phone calls from people I know, so I can’t just ignore every time I see that on my Caller ID.

 

Finally today I get about 6 of those fax calls starting at 7:15 am (Thanks!!) and I turn my phone to silent. Then, a few hours later, I reach into my purse at work to grab something, see that my phone LCD is lit up because someone is calling, except this time! It’s a phone number! An unrecognizable phone number! I answer the inquisitive “hello?” and hear those precious precious words… “sorry, wrong number, I was trying to fax something” and I can finally let him know that this number you’ve been faxing for 2 years? It’s a cell phone buddy.

 

Lame news, lame blog, but that totally made my Friday.

funny

 

NOTE TO SELF, v.1071

When you have the luxury of living a mile away from work, thus going home every day to make lunch, take a nap, browse the boob tube, etc., maybe it’s not such a good idea to start watching a show on Animal Planet that shows abandoned and malnourished and abused dogs, for you might return to work looking like a 16-year-old girl who just got stood up for her Junior Prom.

Deep Thoughts... Really Deep (with footnotes!)

So at work, I’m pretty much in our ERP¹ system 24/7.   Well, more like 7.5/5 but you know what I mean… Anyway, so the system’s command for “go back a screen” (much like hitting the “back” button in any web browser) is F3.

 

It’s true, I’ve become one of those people at work with the Jack-be-nimble fingers, that can navigate the system with my swift keystrokes and deft fingers.  You know when you were a little kid and you used to go to the bank with your mom, and you’d watch the tellers use a calculator or keyboard and they’d pound out the numbers and you’re just left thinking “Oh my gosh, how do they know where the numbers are so quickly?  Mom, can we get ice cream on the way home?”   Anyway, I’ve become that bank teller.  I am that person typing 200 words per minute at work.  At all times, I have my right hand on the number-portion of the keyboard, and my left hand hovered over the F3 button, always a tap away from going back.

 

Don’t you wish you could just F3 your life?  And I’m not talking Marty McFly² like go back in time, but more like just go back to the way things used to be, when going to the bank meant trips to the ice cream store on the way home, when your first instinct was to drive instead of fly because the road trip with your best friend was worth it even if meant it took six times as long than the time-efficient mode of flying.  I recently realized that I need to go back.  I need to F3³ my life.

 

(Say it with me: DEEP.)

 

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning

² http://imdb.com/title/tt0088763/ (swoon re: Marty)

³ http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindsay_smith/1061682802/

 

From McSweeney's.net

Mundane Dreams.

BY JESSY RANDALL AND DANIEL M. SHAPIRO

I am in math class. I have done my homework.

I am at work, wearing my clothes.

I registered for a college class and today is the final exam. I am well prepared.

No one is chasing me.

I'm standing perfectly still. I don't feel like I'm falling.

A guy comes up to me in an alley, smiles and says hello, and keeps walking.

I'm underwater for a long, long time. Then I surface, take a deep breath, and go underwater again.

I drive my car really fast and get to Cleveland that much sooner.

 

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/4JessyRandallandDanielM.Shapiro.html